« November 2004 | Main | January 2005 »
One last blog for 2004 - to send greetings to all my blog readers! My family and I will be in Christchurch for the break, spending time with family etc. I'll also be visiting the Christmas Grotto at Spreydon Baptist Church which my brother's in law have been very involved in helping put together. An impressive undertaking that attracts thousands of visitors each year!
I'll be back blogging in the new year!
Merry Christmas
Derek
Blogs continue to be the talking point in many forums at the moment, with the announcement that the "Blog" is the Word of the Year, 2004, and now speculation is rife over what will be the word for 2005.
Jon Udell, writing in Info World suggests it will be RSS- Really Simple Syndication In his article The network is the blog he discusses the significance of blogs in the emerging architecture of the Web and the role of RSS in this. He states; "Its foundation network is the Web; its protocol is RSS; its nodes are bloggers. These ingredients combine in ways that are not yet widely appreciated."
Udell argues that RSS's ability to enable the aggregation of information from a variety of sources, making it easier to keep tabs on the plethora of information that is available to us on the web, will make it the 'killer app" of 2005.
Meanwhile, Matt Rand in Forbes magazine online argues that Wikis will turn out to be the next big thing. He says; "passively browsing the Web may be a thing of the past. New technologies (eg Wikis) are taking collaborative Web spaces to the next level." Although Wikis are a technology that has been around for some time, it seems they may finally be set for recognition in the wider web community.
In his article Extreme Blogging , Rand asks:
Like many others in the ICT in education field, 2004 has been the year of the Blog! Most of the discussions I've had with teachers and teacher groups has included some level of discussion around what blogs are, how to set them up, and how they can be used in an educational context.
Blogmeister is the most recent blogging software that I've come across that has been designed specifically for education. It has been created by David Warlick of the Landmark Project (another site well worth a browse for teachers!!!!)
Back to Blogmeister, an online blogging tool explicitly designed with teachers and students in mind, where the teacher can evaluate, comment on, and finally publish students' blog articles in a controlled environment. Unfortunately, it can only be used by US teachers at present, as it requires a School ID in order to set up an account.
However, it is well worth looking at this site and reading some of the background information. There is some useful thinking about the process of using blogs in classrooms, and links to a number of teacher blogs (which I'm sure will continue to grow!)
I spent the earlier part of this week attending a hui in Porirua being run by ITPNZ. The hui was held at the historic Gear Homestead (left) in Porirua, and was attended by 26 invited guests - 13 'experts' in eLearning, and 13 'experts' in Maori education. It is one of the eCDF projects titled: "Critical success factors for effective use of e Learning with Maori learners". I had the inenviable role, alongside Dr Kathie Irwin, of facilitating the two days. I was extremely appreciative of Kathie's vast knowledge and wisdom, and her extraordinary skill in facilitation!!!
The focus of the hui was to look at two research papers that had been commissioned, one from the University of Auckland on Maori Pedagogy, and the other from NZCER on eLearning. Attendees spent the two days unpacking these documents and bringing to the table their own experiences to develop the basis of a document to be produced which will provide people working with Maori learners in an eLearning environment with some guidance as to what is effective practice in this area. 
The outputs from this hui will now be worked on by the project team, and reviewed by the Maori reference group and the hui attendees, before being made more widely available sometime next year. One of the questions used to challenge the thinking during the hui was "What is Maori about eLearning for Maori?". So many times the group found themselves discussing things that are essentially "good teaching", and covered in many of the texts on effective eLearning pedagogy. The notion of "ako" as a reciprocal relationship between teacher and learner, and as an 'inclusive' term for a range of key understandings important to Maori was also explored in some depth, and is likely to underpin much of the thinking that emerged from the hui.
Papers and reports from the hui are available on the ITPNZ website.
I just couldn't resist! My blog is now available on your mobile phone!! Simply fire up your mobile device and point it to winksite.com/dwenmoth/dereksblog Click on 'blog' and you'll be able to read the RSS feed of the recent entries on my blog. (Also had a link to a useful RSS validator which you'll notice is now added to the right hand menu of my blog!)
This all comes courtesy of Winksite (short for 'wireless ink"), where I was reading an article on the introduction of WinkBooks, or Mobile Books . The blog provides some urls to connect you to existing examples of books that you can access on your mobile device, and while taking a browse, I also found instructions on how to creat a mobile edition of your blog. The instructions are very easy to follow - and the results instant!
I've just come from a most enlighttening morning of workshops with Helen Barrett (pictured here with "Buzz"!). Helen's speciality is in the areas of Electronic Portfolios and Digitial Storytelling .
Something that I found really useful was Helen's empahsis on the role of reflection, and her comment that "portfolios without reflection are simply a digital scrapbook." Further, Helen distinguishes between the creation of a digital archive, and drawing from that archive to create portfolios for different purposes (eg. to document a learning journey, to provide evidence for assessment, or to support a job application.)
The other thing Helen does so capably is weave the practice of digital storytelling into the preparation of electronic portfolios - linking this in both practical and theoretical ways. The power of some of her digital stories had the group at our workshop really engrossed.
A key issue that arose in our workshop was the observation that there is an increased interest in portfolios for assessment, and that they are being used in ways that are not consistent with the 'learner-owned' models of self-review and self-reflection being promoted in Helen's workshop. We discussed the tension between those who are wanting to use portfolios in a "positivist" way, where they have really been developed from within a "constructivist" paradigm.
I've added more of my reflections/notes from her presentation in my extended entry.
Electronic Portfolios
1 Definitions
"a purposeful collection of student's work that illustrates progress and achievement over time"
"the portfolio is a laboratory where students can construct meaning from their accumulated experience." (Paulson and Paulson, 1991)
ePortfolios...
- use electronic technologies as the container
- allow students/teachers to collect and organise information/artefacts in many media types
- us hyperlinks to organise the material
- connect evience to appropriate standards of achievement
2 Process
Three components identified in building ePortfolios:
- CONTENT - the evidence. Artifacts and reflections and validation
- PURPOSE - what is the portfolio for, who is its audience (eg learning, assessment, employment)
- PROCESS - what tools, activities, rubrics etc are involved in the development and creation of the portfolio.
The more choice the learner has about its development, the greater the motivation to maintain this.
3 Tools
Emerging use of the following as tools for ePortfolio development..
a - online portfolios (web environment)
b - blogs and wikis
c - digital storytelling
d - games
(reference to work in Wales - http://www.careerswales.com
4 Assessment
"report cards give us a snapshot - portfolios give us the moving picture"
5 Metaphors
(ref Dr mary diez - Alveno College)
- MIRROR - reflection
- MAP - providing direction, creaing plan, setting goals
- SONNET - providing a framework, but contents showcase diversity and creativity
6 Five Stages in EP development
- define purpose, context and goals
- create the working portfolio
- the reflective process
- the connected portfolio
- the presentation (published) portfolio
7 Good advice in selecting what to use or where to start...
"When using new tools use familiar tasks...
.... when using new tasks use familiar tools!"
The inaugural EduBlog WebBlog awards are currently being held online. You can go online and vote for one of the nominated blogs in each of the following categories:
* Best Individual Blog
* Best overall group blog
* Best resource sharing blog
* Best Research Based Blog
* Best blogged paper(s)
* Best designed & most beautiful blog
* Best technology meets pedagogy blog
* Best use of weblogs within teaching and learning
* Best Newcomer (2004)
* Best Librarian Blog
Voting closes on Friday 10 December!
Even if you're not inclined to vote, this site is well worth a look to see what sorts of Educationaly oriented blogs there are out there. I came across a number I hadn't heard of, and have added them to my RSS aggregator (NetNewsWire Lite in my case) to keep up with what is being posted on them.
One of the sites I came across is called SchoolBlogs , a Manilla-based blogging environment that is created for school-level users.
SchoolBlogs was set up by Peter Ford, a former teacher at the British School of Amsterdam, and Adam Curry, ex MTV-vj and co-founder of the United Resources of Jamby. The aim is to make available the potential of weblogs to the educational world. To that end, anyone involved in education can create and maintain an individual SchoolBlog here free of charge. The process is simple, taking a matter of seconds to create an online writing space with its own 'look and feel'.
(NB SchoolBlogs is having problems with its ISP at the moment, so you might find it a bit slow to download - but if you're looking for a place to set up a project-based blog for your class this could be for you!)
I've just been playing with MSN Spaces, Microsoft's entry into the world of blogs. It's easy enough to create a blog, and I managed to create a profile easily enough, although the site operates pretty slowly and it took me a number of attempts to upload a photograph (kept telling me that area was not available). Adding music requires a playlist from Windows Media Player - I'm operating iTunes on a Mac, so I couldn't do that at this stage.
I found the site pretty intuitive - but mostly because it closely imitates features on the other, open source blogs. Not a lot of original stuff here. As Stephen Downes states:
I've been browsing around the website of Vancouver-based Ludicorp's photo-sharing/social networking service Flickr recently, after reading the GlobeandMail article Flickr offers snapshot of where the Web's headed
Apparently this product is becoming very popular among the digital photography enthusiasts, even though it's only available in beta form at present. But it's also contributing to something
much more significant: an evolution of the Web that could change the way
people use on-line sites. Flickr is an example of a web service, described as being somewhere between a web site and a regular software program.
Essentially, Flickr provides a place to store and share digital photographs - but its how they are oranised when you upload them that is the interesting part. When a photo is uploaded to Flickr it becomes a part of a network, connected to other photos in the database by their subject or their relation to you. This means photos can be organized or browsed in a number of ways and shared with others easily, instead of being limited to the predefined personal albums offered by most desktop or on-line photo services. In other words, Flickr treats digital photos as what they are, digital objects on a network, rather than like pieces of paper in a book.
The Flickr site is worth a browse to see how this works - there are some interesting collections available from the front page which give you an idea of how the service operates, and you can sign up for a free account if you'd like to see more.
To quote the GlobeandMail article:
Came across this link today from the Educause site, detailing their National Learning Infrastructure Initiative.
The focus of this group is on the things they call the learning infrastructure - including course management systems, learning objects, assessment etc ?? but with a concern for the impact of these on cultural and organisational change. As it says on the site... ??... it is virtually impossible to change teaching and learning without involving academic affairs??.
Another comment I liked on the site...
I've just spent a wonderful two days in Dunedin working with the three tertiary institutions down there - Dunedin College of Education, Otago Polytechnic and the University of Otago. Around 70 staff registered for the two days of workshops titled "eLearning: why is it worth doing?"
One of the things that was energising about the two days was the opportunity to engage with a group of academics from a variety of disciplines in exploring the issues of online teaching and learning.
On my return this morning I came across an interesting site from the University of Central Queensland called Online Collaborative Learning in Higher Education" that contains and excellent list of references to online and offline journal articles and references int his field.
The site invites recommendations of other papers and articles that can be listed, and also has a call for chapters section for those who are looking for somewhere to publish in some upcoming books in this area.
If only I'd had that in my bookmarked list of URLs in Dunedin...!
